Well a few months ago I decided that it was time to get rid of the S60. I couldn't justify fixing it to keep it road legal, so I went car shopping. I was originally looking for a newer 1500 Chevy truck, but it was next to impossible to find a decent one with a monthly payment that I was comfortable with. So I started looking at other cars. I prefer AWD and alittle spunk in a car for a DD. GM doesn't offer a car like that and I'll never buy a Ford or Dodge, but like almost every tuner out there WRXs, STIs, and EVOs interested me. The problem with them is that they are either beat, high mileage, or more than I was comfortable paying. IMO a car payment shouldn't take the majority/most of your weekly pay. I started looking at the latest generation Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliarts, 2.0L Turbo and AWD with the SST automatic transmission. I found this 2010 ~100 miles away with only 28,000 miles on it and the payment was right in my comfort zone.

I found a great deal on a slightly used Evo X turbo(twin scroll TD05, the Ralliart has a single scroll TD04) and couldn't pass it up.

And I picked up 3 Enkei Raijins. Why 3? Apparently no one else has a 4th gunmetal grey 18x8 Raijin with a 40mm offset in stock. So it looks like I am going to have to order another color and have them painted. I'll wrap them in some 245 Hankook V12s.

I also have a set of Swift lowering springs, rear camber arms, and Whiteline rear diff. bushings for it. Future plans include sway bars, bushings, AEM intake, AEM charge piping, AEM intercooler, Ultimate Racing full turboback exhaust, maybe tweak the front and rear bumpers to give it alittle more of an "EVO" look, and the rest of the parts to swap a EVO X turbo on it. I am just looking to make a good handling 300-350awhp DD.

I got the 1st 3 Raijins off of ebay, but I did just order one off of Tirerack(says that it is in stock). Hopefully they have it in stock. Also I have been running the V12s on my cavalier for the past few years and I do not have any complaints.

I did just find a good deal on the Evo X exhaust manifold(need it to run the Evo X TD05), so that should be arriving later this week. That knocks off the 2 most expensive items needed to do the Evo X turbo swap. I don't plan on turbo swapping until I have all of the power mods so I only have to send it to get tuned once(hopefully).

I ended up finding a matching 4th Raijin. I haven't lowered it yet and am thinking of going with coil-overs instead. No one makes "performance" struts for Ralliarts. I can use the Evo X front struts, but the rears are different and won't work. The swift springs are advertised as ok for stock struts and supposedly the stock struts can handle lower springs, but lowering on stock struts just doesn't sit right with me.

I did end up getting another set of wheels/tires for winter. 16x7 Sparco Terra's wrapped in 205 Blizzaks. What little snow we did have in my area it made it thru like a camp.

Also last year before I moved someone backed into it and put a hole in the front bumper and broke the chrome trim. Obviously it bothered me, but I gave me an excuse to pick up a different front bumper.

It is an Evo X knock off that is made to fit the narrower bodies of the Ralliarts and base Lancers. The goal is to confuse alot of people. We never had an Evo X hatchback over here.

It's urethane and I just found it on eBay. I am not sure who makes it but it comes with everything(grills, fog light surrounds, Evo X center trim bar, black or chrome trim like the Ralliart). I also plan on swapping the bumper support and crash pad with the Evo X. It already has the holes in it to allow the center holes to be functional. Plus it is aluminum instead of steel.

Picked up an exhaust for it. Ultimate Racing 3" with resonator and ceramic cat. I went with a cat because it is the DD and it is easier to get it inspected with it. Plus it is advertised as "efficient up to 450hp" and I don't plan on making that much power with the car.

I am looking into tuning the car myself. I just picked up a cheap laptop and next weekend I'll try to get tuning software set up on it. Once I get that done and order the "boost pill" and an AEM Uego I'll toss the exhaust on. The one forum I have been reading shows that guys are picking up 20-30whp with just a tune and a ~$20 "boost pill".

I finally got the car back after 2 rounds at the dealer. 1st an axle seal blew and dumped most of the trans fluid on my driveway and 2nd a pump for a differential started going. While it was there for the 2nd time I had them look into why the car never idled correctly(like it had a set of aftermarket cams w/o a proper tune). They ran a bunch of tests and everything cam back ok except for that the car isn't making the proper vacuum(another issue with larger aftermarket cams). I had my suspicions that the original owner had modded the car, but couldn't confirm it. Well the dealer pulled the cam cover to see what cams were in it. Turns out the reason it was running like it had aftermarket cams in it without a proper tune is because it actually has a set of Cosworth cams in it and is on the stock tune. The dealer wants ~$2500 to put a set of stock cams back in it, but a Cobb Accessport is $500 and a professional dyno tune is $500-$700. So in 2 weeks I have an appointment to get the car dyno tuned and sometime before then I'll be putting the exhaust on the car along with a Cobb electronic boost controller. I could be looking at a 40-50whp gain with this car now instead of the usual 20-30whp that I have read about.

Today I also replaced the bland stock center hood scoop with one from Rexspeed. It isn't 100% prefect, but I like it better than the stock.

Last week I decided to toss the exhaust on the car since I had made a tuning appointment and loaded Cobb's Stage 1 tune on just to get me back and forth to work. The car ran like crap, wouldn't idle and stalled out at redlights.

The day before the tuning appointment I tossed on a Cobb electronic 3-port boost controller to replaced the junk factory one. Loaded the Stage 2 Cobb tune to drive the car to the tuning shop. Still ran like crap.

My dyno results: 250whp/256wtq on 93 octane at 22psi.
I have seen baseline pulls for other stock Ralliarts and they are around 195whp.
I have only just driven the car 3 hours home, but so far there has been a massive improvement in drivablity. It actually idle nice now, doesn't stall, no hiccups when cursing, and the power comes on nicely. I am happy with the job they did.

I picked this rear lip up to address the issue of a single outlet exhaust system on a dual outlet car/bumper. It is made for the sedans, not the wagons but I think that I can get it to work on mine.

I tried putting the coil-overs(Fortune Auto 500s) on last week, but ran into an issue with the front sway bar end links(they attach to the strut) not wanting to break free. I also noticed that it is getting time to replace the brakes on it so why not upgrade a little bit. Hawk HPS pads(my go to pad), StopTech slotter rotors, and StopTech SS brake lines. So I picked up a new set of stock end links and tried again this week. This time I beat the end links, a sawzall *might* have helped, but I won. I have 100-150 miles on the new coil-overs and I must say that I am very happy with them. I got rid of the wheel gap and they ride very very close to stock. I'll get pictures next week when I toss the brakes and summer wheels on. I ran out of time this week for the brakes and I didn't want to kill a brand new set of Hankook V12s with a bad alignment.

Also the car is still running pretty good. It still has a few quirks that need to be ironed out. I think I am going to ditch the Cobb Accessport and go open-source and go to a different tuning shop.